Paradox
by nanno
Summary: MM. Link knows about truth and lies better than anyone.


i never thought i'd ever actually post this. i started it early last year, left it alone for months, and came back to it near the end of the year to finish, but by then i'd forgotten what i'd meant to do with it. i've always been interested in the majora's mask universe but i find this fic to be rather self-indulgent and derivative, so i've been reluctant to publish it out of self-consciousness.

i imagined the events of this fic as just a few selections from an infinite set of realities for link, so i hope it will make sense read that way. feedback is appreciated, especially if it is criticism.

* * *

Look, Tatl tells the little deku scrub with the sorrowful orange eyes and the strange green clothes below, Look how big the moon is.

He looks. The moon glares back, its face contorted in a terrifying anger as if damning all of Termina.

Moons don't have faces.

He doesn't tremble, he doesn't scream. It's the deku that trembles and screams in a voice he doesn't recognize. It's the deku that stares at the moon with wide-eyed fear. The moon's face is very, very human, and very, very not.

(Just like him.)

Link knows that there are different kinds of fear. There is fear that breathes life into one's very bones and gives strength; the kind that allows men to lift mountains. There is fear that infects the mind. It propels forward without a thought and allows men to do unthinkable things. This fear is neither. It's paralyzing, it reaches into his very nerves and pulls them out from his chest and leaves him numb.

He also knows that children like him should not know these things. Fear doesn't exist for children.

(But he's not really a child, is he?)

To observers—the ones he thinks he knows but he really doesn't because this world is all _wrong_—he is simply a tiny foreign deku scrub with nowhere in particular to be. He's carefree; he's not weighed down by obligations and responsibilities and the stress of the world. That is humanity's greatest flaw, he thinks—no, he knows. After all, he has lived through it before. Appearances are meaningless lies, and when one believes in appearances, they begin to live a lie. Only when they strip the layers of illusions off can they see truth, naked and clear.

That is what he must do now; this is why he was sent here. He will skin every bit of the curse and the Skull Kid and of Termina and all that will be left are the simple, unmistakable truths.

* * *

These are truths.

Two days pass. He has grown accustomed to the presence of the moon above and the familiar feeling of the end of the world. He has learned to live with this new body and new companion. He wouldn't consider Tatl a friend, but he supposes they have come to some sort of mutual understanding during the time they have been together. The streets of Clock Town that once seemed so strange and terrifying to him are now easier to navigate, and he wonders, faintly, why he now remembers these streets better than he remembers the real ones—the ones that exist in the world that now feel like a faraway memory, on the verge of being lost.

But he does remember this: once, when he was younger and naive, he lived in a paradise, stagnant and indefinite. But also: time stops for nothing, not even paradise.

Most of the residents of the town have left by now, finally understanding what he, the foreign little deku boy, understood before they all did. Link walks through nearly empty streets, hearing nothing but distant noise, and, more clearly, the sound of his wooden feet hitting the stone rhythmically. The repetition is almost calming; he can predict when his feet touch the ground, left foot first, then right foot. Left; right; left; he knows where the next step will take him and how long it'll take to reach his destination. It doesn't change unless he wills it to. He can control this.

He kicks a rupee left behind in the dirt, forgotten. It's almost unreal to him how worthless it is now, and his eyes linger on it a second longer than they should. If Tatl finds his behavior strange, she doesn't question it. It doesn't matter anyways; she sees him as a child, a cursed little boy who happened to be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time and was now about to die forgotten in this fraud of a world just like everyone else in Termina because he had been doomed and unlucky. She doesn't know the truth. Only the goddesses do.

The goddesses work in strange ways, he decides. Strange and cruel ways.

(Children shouldn't know that either.)

_Tell me a story_, Tatl says to him as they wait for the moon to fall.

So he does. He tells a story about a boy who becomes a man too soon, about a boy—no, a man—who has to save a world already ruined and about how after he saves that world he is alone, all alone, and it is unbearable and in the end he has to leave because there is simply nothing left for him. Nobody knows what happens next; nobody but the goddesses.

(There is no happy ending. Happy endings are shallow lies created by ignorant people who have never lived, have never experienced an ending.)

The silence that follows the end of his story unnerves him. He's given away too much of himself, he fears.

_Oh, that's not what I expected._

A tilt of his head and a twitch of his lips. _How so?_

_You're a kid. Aren't you only supposed to know happy stories about beautiful princesses and their handsome knights?_

Link does not reply, only waiting for the fourth day that does not come.

* * *

It is the deku who tells him to visit the southern swamp first, and he indulges in the desires of this identity—the one that fears and trembles at the moon—with an acute feeling of detachment. The mask is not him, and he is not the mask, he knows, but he is not surprised when he shudders and instinctively feels a sense of horror and fear take root deep within his core when the swamp comes into view.

It is dead, and he knows this like he knows everything else is going to die too, and better it be dead already than dying over and over, he thinks.

(It is the not-child in him who tells him this, not the deku. It is also the not-child whose bones sing as he ventures deeper and deeper within the ruined, overgrown temple in search of something that has been lost, because it is when the child is at his wildest that he is most alive.)

He fears it sometimes, more than he fears anything in this world. He fears that one day, he will find himself deep within the untamed land and immerse himself in it and never come out because his masks are not him, but their desires are his desires; the deku's heart is made of the very earth itself, burying itself deep among the very foundations of life and standing tall and unshakable; the goron's heart is made of fire, warming him through the strongest parts of the cold and isolation; the zora's heart is made of electricity, making him feel like he's soaring and transcending anything else he could ever have; and his heart is of something wild, of one who desires to tear apart the very structure of life, until there is only feeling.

He is afraid of these desires—the ones that are not from the deku, nor the goron, nor the zora, but from deep within him—and sometimes, he comes to find, living for a lie is better than dying for the truth because it's easier to fear the truth than it is to fear a lie.

(Fear doesn't exist for children.)

He becomes the deku boy, rotting and forgotten, whose only wish is he could see his father again because life is so cruel, to suck out his life while he is young and has dreams; dreams that he will someday be respected by his king, seen and admired by his peers, and maybe feel the love of the beautiful girl who is his princess. He becomes the goron warrior, buried in the snow, who loved all and was loved by all in turn, and in the end died the only way he could: protecting his people. He becomes the zora who made a promise he couldn't keep, no matter how much he wanted to—_oh_, how he wanted to—and now could never hear the songs of the sea anymore because his heart is buried on the beach.

(He does not want to become the child stuck in an endless cycle of time saving Termina from itself, because he laughs at the irony that he can't even save him from himself.)

* * *

It is always the first day for them, but never for him. He understands Clock Town in a way they will never understand. But they don't know this because to them, he is a boy they have never seen before, perhaps one that has come from a land just beyond the walls of the town. But not the east, of course; that land is a land of thieves, not children. To them he is a boy whose gazes are merely curious or contemplative, not ones of a person who has seen into their lives before, has lived these days over and over and stopped time just before the moon falls to see into their lives once again.

Sometimes they see him walking through the streets as if he has come with a purpose, and they wonder for a moment if perhaps he is an apprentice on an errand for his master, or perhaps he is visiting someone he knows. But in an instant he turns around a corner, out of their sight, and they think of the strange little boy with the fairy no more.

Sometimes they also catch a glimpse of a small deku child, his head at their knees and his little wooden body weaving smoothly through the crowd with a bright fairy fluttering above his head as if he has been through it before, and they think he looks oddly familiar—perhaps he knows the young boy who appeared in the town before, the one with the green clothes and bright yellow hair?—but it doesn't matter, really, not when there is work to be done and the future to think of and a moon coming closer, closer.

Sometimes there is a goron, and other times there is a zora, wearing strange green clothing and a hat that appear to be from somewhere far, far away. The people of Clock Town greet him like a new person each time, and he smiles back at them even when they shy away from the massive goron or stare a little too long at the lean zora, as it is easier to pretend that everything is good and to lie in a world that is always filled with lies than to tell truths that are no longer truths.

_But how do you know it's supposed to be a lie?_ Tatl asks him, because that is what he tells her when she asks if he ever gets tired of pretending nothing ever happened.

_Because I'm not supposed to be here, _he tells her reasonably. _I'm the lie._

(Tatl doesn't seem to understand how a child can say such things, but he does, and he smiles up at her too.)

* * *

He kills a man once, on one of the first days. The next two pass by in a somber silence, because Link never brings things up himself and Tatl cannot bring herself to.

Tatl finally tries to reassure him awkwardly as midnight approaches. "Hey, don't worry about that guy too much. Everybody's gotta die some day. Besides, you can play that song, right?" She hums the tune. "He deserved it anyways. Probably killed a bunch of little boys like you." A pause. "Okay, maybe not like _you_, but you get it. _Please_ don't go all existential crisis on me."

He says back, "No, that's not it. Not really." Because, he thinks, it's not about the killing. He has killed before, and this isn't any different, except it is. "We're _cheating_."

Because a day will come where the woman bringing her supply of bombs to the bomb shop will lose her supply to a thief on the midnight that marks the beginning of the second day the moon began to fall, and he will not be killed by a foreign boy in green clothing and an expertly—too expertly—fired arrow. And, really, that's how it should be.

Tatl seems to ponder this for a moment, and then two. Then, her verdict: "Yeah, a little bit. This is one of your 'lying' things isn't it?"

Link laughs and plays the melody he learned in a land that is far, far away from Termina.

That day, the bomb shop cannot restock its supply of bombs because a thief has stolen the delivery, and somewhere beyond Clock Town, Link is oblivious, just like the rest of Termina.

* * *

There is a day, lost among the others but there nonetheless, he tries to believe the lie.

The ranch is much different from the one back home, but Link can't mistake the emotions that overtake him, ones he hasn't felt since he left a place he can barely remember now. He shuts his eyes and allows himself to listen to nothing but the sound of the wind threading through the trees, and for a moment he can pretend he's somewhere else, with the smell of the earth and horses and life and the sound of that song from much too long ago.

It's the third day, one among many. In this broad stretch of land, uninterrupted by the buildings of the town, he can see the moon above, clear and unadulterated, inching closer and closer.

He stopped fearing it long ago.

There is a girl sitting on a crate. Something painful and familiar tugs at him and, oh, it's Malon. But it's not really her. He knows better than anyone that it's not really her. But for a moment, he tells himself maybe it isn't so bad, because maybe this Malon is happy with living in this world and maybe he can be happy for her and the three days she repeats indefinitely. But he looks at her face and something is wrong, so wrong. He has grown accustomed to the people of Clock Town living blissfully unaware of their fate, but he looks at this girl and can only see someone who has seen the horrors to come and more.

He listens to her speak of something she can no longer remember with a growing horror, and he can hear Tatl whispering something to him—_she's crazy, messed up_—but it doesn't matter because suddenly he can't stop thinking of the weariness in his bones and the tiredness of his mind and wondering if it will ever end. It isn't fair, he realizes, that every three days she lives through this over again. Not just her, so many others in Termina—the captured deku girl who worries about those who worry for her, the goron tribe waiting for their hero who will never come, the beautiful zora singer with the lost love—are subject to a constant cycle of helplessness, unaware that somewhere in Termina, there is a boy who knows everything, has seen them, has helped them, has sent them back to the beginning.

There is an older girl here too, one that reminds him of wide green fields and the feeling of freedom during a time of uncertainty, who tells him with bleary red eyes that maybe, if she had just done something, things would be different. He finds himself beyond empathy as he watches her in the empty barn, mourning.

(He doesn't try to tell her the truth; that even if she had done something this time, it would irrevocably mean nothing the next.)

When he visits Romani Ranch on the first day, he cheerfully agrees to help the girl who has not yet experienced the horrors he knows she will go through. He listens to her talk of Them and how the cows must be protected, and he nods seriously and prepares to create this new lie, because her eyes are so bright and her smile is so wide and it would be a pity if in three days her eyes are empty and her smile broken.

(He can't tell her, because he wants to think for a while that he doesn't know.)

_Why did you save her? None of this is going to matter once you play that song again._

He shrugs and answers, looking away at the horizon to watch the sun rise tentatively over the barn, _I wanted to believe it would._

* * *

It is after and before he has traveled deep into the eastern canyon and seen the dead who are not quite dead that he meets Kafei.

He learns about him before they do meet, from the large lady that Link recognizes as the mayor's wife. It is Kafei, her son, who has gone and disappeared right before his wedding to the young girl who takes care of the inn in town, and surely Link is there to find him and bring him back. He lets her believe he is who she wants to believe he is—_another lie_, his mind tells him, and it really has become as easy as slipping on a mask—and smiles brightly at her as he agrees to find her missing son. He is given another mask with another face, but thankfully this one is not a mask created from a song so he doesn't have to feel the sorrow of dying too young and being separated from true love and become this soul, too, when he puts it on.

He smiles brightly again when he meets the unlucky woman whose fiancé is missing and says yes, his name is Link and yes, he does have a reservation for the Stock Pott Inn.

(_You're such a liar_, Tatl laughs as Link examines the room, because she understands him a little better now and that he is not the child that everyone else thinks he is. She seems to pride herself in that sometimes, because she is wayward and likes to collect secrets as a general principle. _Nobody would think it, 'cause you're so tiny and cute or whatever, but you are. I wonder which poor guy you stole this room from._

_It's not stealing_, he says to her as he watches from the window a goron below, making his way to the inn. _He'll get it back in three days. _

Tatl laughs some more, even though it's not really funny, and that is the end of that.)

Kafei is short, just about Link's height, and with a face much too round and young to be the man he's looking for. Tatl doesn't believe it, but Link knows enough about lies to spot one.

The meeting is in itself ordinary, but it reminds Link of the things he believed when he first came to Termina, that he would see through all of the lies and find the truth where it hid. Kafei reminds him of himself with his determination and blunt knowledge of the fate of Termina and the wickedness of little children in masks because he is a child who is not a child.

And as he allows himself to agree to show the woman in the Stock Pot Inn that indeed, her fiancé is out there and no, he has not left her; he has proof in a pendant—a promise—he contemplates the extent of this truth because he is a wicked child with many masks who can take truths, make new ones, and turn them back again.

She never receives the pendant. On the third day Link watches as she leaves for the ranch in the south because she cannot wait while the moon looms ever closer and remembers the young girl with the empty eyes and broken smile, and the older one forever wondering _what if_?

And he can't help but wonder too: what if?

Because he knows this better than anyone: there are countless truths in Termina, just as there are countless lies, but somewhere amidst all of the truth and the lies, there is an end. Link brings the ocarina to his lips and thinks, perhaps this will be the true end.


End file.
